10 Video Games that Marked the End of an Era Years After

Change is inevitable in the video game industry. Driven by tech, innovations for computers, graphics, and even just for video games as a medium themselves have given us some incredible advancements in the last 30 years. At some point in your life, your favorite game series or company has done something to change things forever, and the only thing you can do is accept it.

Some changes can be felt the instant a game comes out, and others you can see coming from a mile away. Sometimes, though, what's changed isn't noticeable until other games or other changes come out. You then look back, see where it all started, and take in what's left behind. Let's look back at some of these moments that we didn't understand until much later.

10 Final Fantasy X

The End Of Final Fantasy As We Knew It

Final Fantasy X is a great example of the evolution in the gaming industry I mentioned earlier. For the last five Final Fantasy games, each one has been growing and changing with new technologies and advancements. Squaresoft saw what could be done with how things had changed with each and every new installment, and they didn't hesitate to take that chance. Final Fantasy VII introduced 3D, FF8 refined what FF7 brought to the table, FF9 kept the improvements coming until it all culminated in Final Fantasy X.

There's a strong reason Final Fantasy X sits as a perfect entry for a lot of fans. From seamless FMV to gameplay integration, pre-rendered backgrounds, and a turn-based battle system many players swear by as the best to this day. It's truly the pinnacle of traditional Final Fantasy, and especially so because everything has changed with Final Fantasy 12.

The Final Fantasy series had always been one to experiment, but so many people skip games because they haven't exactly matched with what they were like up until Final Fantasy 12, especially in the turn-based department. With every new installment, it's hard not to look back and see where it all changed, and Final Fantasy X marks the peak and the end.

9 Animal Crossing: New Leaf

Living Up to Its Name By Marking a Big Change

My introduction to Animal Crossing was with the original GameCube game. I rented it a few times before convincing my parents to buy it for me, and I've been with the series all the way to Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I can tell you first hand that Animal Crossing: New Leaf felt like a, well, new leaf, for the series when it was released. Not in the way we thought back then, even though some people might've seen this coming from what New Leaf added to the formula.

In New Leaf, players were dubbed the new mayor of the town they moved into. It didn't matter that they never signed up for this responsibility in-game, it was just like this now! Being the mayor meant they could choose where certain villagers lived, what was displayed on the ground, all sorts of new rules that allowed players to make their towns theirs when all the other games up to that point left most customization to players' houses.

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer soon followed, and that led into New Horizons, where a lot of regular players feel like Animal Crossing's unique feel has been lost in favor of customization features. If you don't believe me, play Animal Crossing on the GameCube and come back to me, because the difference is night and day.

8 Sonic Frontiers

True to the Game, Sonic Never Gives Up

Sonic Frontiers had one of the most interesting press cycles in the history of the franchise. Not only was it teased roughly a year and a half in advance, but there were small samples and teases given leading up to launch that made it clear that Frontiers was going to be different. The game gave us the best story we've had since Sonic and the Black Knight, underlying continuity, and a new formula that Sonic Team had made clear it wasn't compromising on for good reviews. This confidence led Sonic Frontiers to become the best-selling Sonic game of all time, beating Sonic Heroes at last.

What's important is what came after. With how well-received Frontiers' doubling down on Sonic lore was, Sega established a dedicated lore team. Every game after Frontiers has been dedicated to portraying the cast faithfully, helping the franchise embrace itself. Shadow Generations and Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds are unapologetic about being Sonic games while offering great experiences in their own right. Sonic Team may credit the way Sonic is at an all-time high now to Sonic Mania, but Sonic Frontiers is where Sonic Team took full initiative. If you told me what was coming next back in 2022, I'd have asked if I was dreaming, personally.

7 Icewind Dale 2

The Last of Its Kind

Dungeons & Dragons video games have been around almost as long as the game itself has. Name practically any console and there will be a D&D game on it at some point. These titles have seen significant evolution to boot, going from being very text-heavy to fantastically eye-candy adventures like Baldur's Gate 3.

For a long while, top-down 2D CRPGs were the biggest components of D&D games. Baldur's Gate was, of course, one of the biggest of these and still reigns supreme today. Icewind Dale was an enjoyable game that was on the shelves with other long, immersive experiences, leading to a sequel. Icewind Dale 2 was on the way when Neverwinter Nights released and opened brand-new 3D potential for CRPGs. Icewind Dale 2 released just a few months later, and it already felt much older than other titles on the shelves thanks to what Neverwinter Nights brought to the table.

After that point, progress had been made, and top-down 2D CRPGs never really struck the same nostalgic cords as Icewind Dale 2 and other games did. It's a bit sad to look back on, considering if we tried to make these games the same these days, we've largely forgotten how.

6 World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

WoW's Long Defended Peak

It's widely considered by a large margin, and I mean a very large margin, that World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is the best expansion Blizzard's enormous MMORPG has had in its 22-year-long tenure. It's hard to argue against Wrath's fantastic and unforgettable additions to the game, like the introduction of the Death Knight class and leveling zones with stronger emphasis on making their side stories matter. Once players were done, they looked to new expansions with high hopes for even more improvements to come.

Now, there are plenty of good World of Warcraft expansions since WotLK, and WotLK has its detractors. To many fans, though, the added content after just hasn't been the same. There have been too many flaws in patches and expansions since for players to agree on the new best expansion.

The way the Dungeon Finder cut out socializing aspects many enjoyed Wow itself for, for one example, and how future patches have changed even Wrath of the Lich King's content have made many players miss what it was like back when WotLK first arrived on the scene. A lot of expansions have come close, but none have managed to knock the Lich King off of his throne.

The Jokes of Kojima Being Put in Konami's Basement Hold Some Truth to Them

For what Metal Gear Solid was, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain brings a bold new direction. Many players enjoyed the action-stealth sandbox, but felt that it lacked the heavy story emphasis of other games. The Phantom Pain is still a great game despite its differences, but it's also a miracle that the game exists at all. In 2015, there was a power struggle between Konami and Kojima Productions, leading to rumors of director Hideo Kojima's departure from the company once the game was finished.

Tensions rose and restrictions were in place to the point where Kojima was locked in a separate room during the final months of development. He wasn't allowed to attend most press events, including a forced absence at The Game Awards 2015 when Phantom Pain won Best Action Game and Best Soundtrack.

Watching the news break about all of this was a scary time indeed, and luckily, Kojima announced his new independent studio at the end of that same year. As Death Stranding went from being a series of vague, yet artistic trailers to now having two games available to play, I can't help but look back at the incident during The Phantom Pain. We'll never know the whole story, but seeing Kojima rise as Konami consistently drops the ball with Metal Gear Solid overall makes me realize just how much the series ended up being collateral damage.

4 Destiny 2

History's Latest Cautionary Tale

Destiny 2 has been the darling of looter-shooters for some time now. Multiple studios released their own looter-shooters to try and achieve the success that came from Destiny 2, even though it wasn't sustainable. Betting on the profits stabilizing saw Bungie making a long-term expansion project with an overarching story across many updates. As things went on, the studio seemed in a worsening state, and things gradually shifted toward their newer project, Marathon.

The Final Shape thankfully saw the story of Destiny 2 come to a close, but player numbers dwindled steadily after everyone got closure. Many people had long fallen out of love with the game. This led to more and more layoffs that had many of us wondering if the game was going to survive.

As of the latest announcement, Destiny 2 is set to cease live-service updates in a few weeks. Just two days before The Final Shape's second year. Many players who are still hanging on have no idea what will happen to events and limited-time items they need to keep playing, and others are reading the room more closely and believe that Marathon might be next.

3 Assassin's Creed 2

Little Did We Know that Assassin's Creed 2 Was Just Right

So, you know how video game file sizes keep going up? Not just because of poor optimization, but because there are so many open-world games full of quests and needless tasks that almost seem like padding? Ezio Auditore da Firenze was unfortunately our last bastion before all of that. Assassin's Creed 2 was a great improvement over the first Assassin's Creed with the map size and what players could do. A lot of people credit Assassin's Creed for setting the standard in making a large, explorable map feel alive.

From there, the expectation for Ubisoft Montreal seemed to be to keep topping the map size, because each one was bigger than the last. Like Destiny's influence over looter-shooters, other companies wanted to follow Assassin's Creed's success and new standards, and that led to games like Far Cry 4 becoming gorged with an unnecessarily big map. Some games like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth open up debates about whether their maps should be that big at all. If only things stayed as humble as Ezio's Italy.

2 PUBG: Battlegrounds

They Were Here First

PUBG: Battlegrounds released in early access on March 23, 2017. Epic Games released Fornite Battle Royale on September 26, 2017. If that just made you go "huh," you're not alone. Developer Bluehole Studios thought the same thing, and thought that Epic had stolen some of its mechanics through their work together to develop PUBG in the Unreal Engine. There was even a lawsuit regarding it that the developers dismissed later on.

I don't think I need to explain how big Fortnite is. It's the only game where it's possible to have Cluck and Peter Griffin have a shootout while Hatsune Miku watches. It has reached multiple milestones of having millions of players on at a time over the years. Since it was released, none of us have known peace. Several franchises have tried to make a battle royale mode or game to cash in on this success, and none of them have succeeded. PUBG's release was the end of an era before Fortnite took over the world.

It All Comes Back to That

I've talked about a lot of games that have gone from marking a new start for their franchises to leaving a mark on gaming as a whole. I think we can all agree that the start of microtransactions is certainly one era we wish we could go back to and change.

Sega was the first company to implement DLC with the Dreamcast. However, Xbox Live Marketplace was where price tags started showing up for DLC packages as we know them today. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was one of the first games to start these practices. The first one was a pack of armor for your in-game horse for $2.50 USD (Or $1.99 on PC.)

Players were outraged when this DLC dropped, saying it was too expensive for what it offered. Looking back, it really serves as a reminder of how normalized microtransactions and DLC have become. Entire games are now built out of taking as much money as they can out of their player base. Oh, how little we knew what the horse armor was to fortell of our future.